POSTERS claiming that Sainsbury’s ‘couldn’t care less’ about plastic appeared on the supermarket's Westgate store this weekend.

The Greenpeace posters follow research by the pro-climate group suggesting that Sainsbury’s is the worst performer on plastic reduction of all major UK supermarkets.

Lisa Stockdale, from Iffley Fields, said: "As I was leaving the Westgate Centre after a meal out with friends on Friday night, I saw four posters decorating Sainsbury’s. I’m really disappointed to learn that Sainsbury’s, despite being the UK’s second largest supermarket, couldn’t care less about plastic pollution."

But a Sainsbury’s spokesperson rejected the claims, explaining: “ Greenpeace says we have pledged to reduce plastic by 77 tonnes and, in fact, we will reduce plastic by well over 2,400 tonnes in the next 12 months alone.

"For Sainsbury’s branded products, 67 per cent of the plastic that we use is widely recyclable and 100 per cent will be widely recyclable packaging by 2025. We have ambitious targets to continue to reduce plastic across our product range.”

Greenpeace’s research suggests that since January 2018, Sainsbury’s has promised to cut just 77 tonnes of plastic packaging, compared to Asda's 6,500 tonne reduction.

The organisation is calling for Sainsbury’s to get rid of pointless plastic packaging, and phase-out plastic that can’t be recycled by 2020.

Local Greenpeace volunteer Janet Budd said: "Hundreds of customers in Oxford and across the UK have written messages to Sainsbury’s, and close to a million people have signed Greenpeace’s petition calling on UK supermarkets to ditch throwaway plastic packaging.

"But Sainsbury’s isn’t listening. That’s why Greenpeace decided to teach Sainsbury’s the basics."